Entries by Michael Bingaman

“What allows you to perform at your peak in the season?” mental performance coach Julian Coffman asked a room full of America’s top developmental skiers last summer. “Confidence,” one of the athletes offers. “And where does that confidence come from?” Julian counters. “From trusting in your preparation and in your summer training,” the athlete replies.

Everyone is looking for the secret formula for success. The funny thing is, it might just be one word: why. In Simon Sinek’s book Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, he explains the power of simply asking why. The word goes a long ways. The best companies understand the why. The most successful athletes understand the why. Good coaching starts with why, as Vern Gambetta talked about on this week’s GAINcast. This month’s site theme is setting goals, and good goals start with why. Sinek summarizes the topic well early in the book:

At the core, the ideas behind a warm up are relatively straightforward and well-understood: increase muscle temperature, increase range of motion, dial in an athlete psychologically, increase heart rate, prepare the joints, ligaments, and tendons for movement and impact, and much more. Together the warm up should prepare the athlete physically and mentally for training and competition. In most sports, the timing and execution of a warm up is simple. But in winter sports, challenges appear all over for something that should be one of the easiest parts of training to implement.

What are the rules that consistently govern your actions? What do you turn to when faced with challenging circumstances or unique opportunities? How do you know if what you’re doing aligns with what you believe or with who you are? Though it seems elementary to one’s ability to function at a high level, so few people have actually taken the time to write out who they are and what they believe in.